SIDE BY SIDE
Compare mantic systems
Read systems against shared questions to identify common language, procedural differences and distinct limits.
| Dimension | 风角、云气与物候杂占 ↗ | 国家星占与天象占候 ↗ |
|---|---|---|
| Family | Celestial omens and signs | Celestial omens and signs |
| Inputs | Direction, time, weather description and traditional judgment | Chronology, observation, textual locator and omen commentary |
| Procedural structure | Time, direction, color, sound and duration were recorded and matched to omen statements through phases, directions, offices, armies or topics. Some rules may preserve weather experience; others are symbolic analogies. | Observers recorded time, direction, color, duration and motion, then linked the event through star offices, terrestrial fields, phases and inherited omen statements to rulers, war, disaster or harvest. |
| Formation | Pre-imperial precedents; extensive manuals from Qin-Han through Tang | Early records in Shang-Zhou; systematized in Warring States-Han and long institutionalized |
| Evidence labels | Excavated evidence · Textually documented | Excavated evidence · Textually documented |
| Texts | Yisi Zhan / Kaiyuan Zhanjing / Dunhuang cloud and bird-call manuals / Qin-Han daybooks | Records of the Grand Historian, Treatise on Celestial Offices / Book of Han, Treatise on Astronomy / Yisi Zhan / Kaiyuan Zhanjing / Mawangdui Wuxing Zhan |
| Limits | Practical meteorology and auspicious interpretation must be analyzed separately. Animal behavior cannot be treated as portent without ecology, season and observational bias. | Historical observations have value for the history of science, but their political prognostications are not thereby validated by modern astronomy. Observation and interpretation must be separated. |
| Research question | Can different observers describe the same phenomenon consistently? | Where does observable description end and political interpretation begin? |